


Feeling Good

by vuatson (Adi_Sagestar)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Minecraft youtube, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, George POV, Mind Control, Partial Mind Control, Realistic, but they'll be fine don't worry they're adrenaline junkies, more like an altered mental state, realistic minecraft au, sort of not really mind control, that makes you want to hunt your best friend to the death, this is no longer a oneshot!, warnings for violence and mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adi_Sagestar/pseuds/vuatson
Summary: Scene: the beginning of the first manhunt. Dream is afraid.You can’t see his eyes, but there’s a line of tension across his shoulders that you’ve never seen before, and certainly never because of you. One of his hands is half-raised, like he’s instinctively preparing to defend himself. He’s afraid. He really is afraid.You step closer.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 146





	1. Chapter 1

You land softly on the grass of the new world, bouncing on the balls of your feet for a moment as the brief darkness of the void gives way to light and color. The air has a warm, sweet quality to it which is beautiful after the chill of the last world’s End. You fill your lungs, stretch out your sore arms (still bruised from the Dragon fight), absently check that your respawn talisman is still where it should be, and turn to your partner.

“Good spawn, do you think, Dream?” You’ve landed in a pine forest, not your favorite, but better than a barren tundra or a treeless island. You can easily get the resources you need here. You’re itching to start - the two of you finished killing one of the most dangerous creatures in any universe not ten minutes ago, but something inside you already wants to get moving.

Dream is standing just a few meters away in a patch of sunlight. He hasn’t made a move to pull up the communicator’s sparse analysis of the world’s properties, which is odd for him. Usually that’s the first thing he does. The communicator scan may not give you much, but it can detect most dangerous anomalies, which are definitely the sort of thing you want to know about going in. But Dream hasn’t even reached for his. He’s just standing there, head cocked a little to the side. Perfectly still.

“Hey _Dream,_ I said _do you think this is a good spawn?_ ” you ask, obnoxiously loud, walking over with full intention of annoying shoulder-punching. You want to _go,_ already. You want to already be running. But he throws a hand up before you can reach him.

“George, wait. Is that… do you feel that?”

“Feel what?” You roll your eyes, bouncing on your heels again.

“I don’t know, just - something feels weird. Like, I feel all - hm.” He cuts himself off. You can barely see his mouth twisted in a frown under the lip of the mask.

Ugh, you don’t have _time_ for whatever this is. “Dream, c’mon. Nothing’s wrong. I feel _great._ ” You do. You feel like you’ve just slept ten hours and used bottles o’ enchanting for your morning shower. “Let’s _go_ already!” You move towards him again, but he spins sharply to face you, hand still outflung.

“I said _wait,_ George, hold up a second.” His voice is a little higher than usual. He’s staring like he can’t afford to lose track of your location.

Dream seems… afraid of you?

The idea of Dream fearing you for any reason is ridiculous. Even if you were strong enough to be a real threat to him - and you don’t kid yourself, you’re no slouch, but you don’t win even one fight in twenty when he’s fighting for real - you’re _George._ He’s _Dream._ You would never actually try to hurt him, any more than he would you. He would have nothing to fear from you if you were the Ender Dragon itself. The idea just doesn’t make sense. “Dream?” you ask, moving a step towards him, tilting your head in concern. 

He backs away from you in perfect sync. You can’t see his eyes, but there’s a line of tension across his shoulders that you’ve never seen before, and _certainly_ never because of you. One of his hands is half-raised, like he’s instinctively preparing to defend himself. He’s afraid. He really is afraid.

You step closer.

The idea doesn’t make sense. But you find that somehow, suddenly, it _does._ Your restless energy has tightened all at once to a laser focus. Dream takes another step back, and another, and something about the way his heel catches on a tuft of grass shoots up your spine like lightning. He stumbles, just a little - normally so graceful, he can move across the canopy of a forest at a dead sprint without missing a step - and you lock eyes. Even through the mask, you can tell. He’s afraid of you. You can _tell._

You want to ask him what’s wrong. Or, you think you do. You should. Your best friend is as afraid as you’ve ever seen him. But when you open your mouth to call his name, it curls out low and playful, like an invitation to share in a joke. “Dream,” you say, and you feel the corner of your mouth turn up, feel your teeth exposed.

“Geor-” He cuts himself off at the first syllable, but you heard his voice shake. Does he know how tightly his fists are clenched? He swallows and clears his throat, opens his mouth like he wants to speak again, but just takes another step back. Then another. You’re the one mirroring him now, moving towards him as he backs away. Step. Step. His head tilts back up to meet your eyes, again, just for a moment.

Step.

Dream cuts and runs, and you lose track of everything you were thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fanfic I've written since I was about 12 years old and god help me, it's about minecraft youtubers.
> 
> This story takes place in a larger universe I've been calling the Explorers 'Verse. It's a sci-fi AU where the basic concept is that most MCYTers work for an organization that explores and records new parallel dimensions. I have quite a bit of worldbuilding sketched out, and even if I don't continue this (which I kind of want to do??) I may very well end up posting other oneshots set in the AU.
> 
> If you liked this please consider leaving a kudos and commenting! I would really appreciate it!! :D
> 
> edit: oh yeah, my tumblr is [quicksandblock](quicksandblock.tumblr.com). I may post more about this universe on there if you want to check it out :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mind the tags, y'all. the Graphic Depictions Of Violence warning has been added and it is there for a reason.
> 
> thank you to my amazing sibling [orestes-swimming](orestes-swimming.tumblr.com) for beta reading this despite not even being in the fandom! you are an absolute legend, K <3

By the end of the first day, Dream has killed you three times and your head has cleared a little. Things had gotten pretty intense for a while there — Dream kept sneaking up on you while you were trying to collect supplies, and it was just so frustrating! He was supposed to be running _away_ from you, not attacking you! So if you maybe got mad and just attacked him with your bare hands once or twice, that’s kind of understandable, you think.

The last time, he had surprised you from below while you were stripping branches off of a tree. You’d known he was somewhere nearby and in your rush to find something you could use as a weapon you hadn’t noticed him coming up behind you. You’d caught sight of him barely a second before his sword bit deep into your calf, slicing right through the tendon at the back of your ankle.

You think he meant to cripple you and run, buying time while you worked up the nerve to put yourself through respawn, but you had managed to grab him as you fell and knocked him to the ground underneath you. You’d known you were going to die so you’d just thrown yourself at him, clawing and beating at his head while he slashed desperately at you from his awkwardly pinned position. Without the mask, you think smugly, you _definitely_ would have taken an eye. As is you’re hoping for a concussion at least. (He’s never dealt with those well — the last time he got one you and Sapnap had to spend a full day and a half taking care of him while he laid in the back of your hastily made lean-to trying not to throw up.)

Eventually he had managed to get an arm free, as you had known he would, and the last thing you remember seeing is the stone-tipped point of his sword coming directly at your face.

Getting killed wasn’t all bad. For one thing, _your_ wounds have been all but erased by respawn, though you’d spent a good ten minutes limping after you first woke up. For another, once he was solidly out of reach you had calmed down enough to realize that rushing him like that wasn’t going to get you anywhere. What you _needed_ was proper tools and armor — enough stuff that he won’t stand a chance when you find him again. That’s why instead of running you’re currently squeezing through a narrow opening in the side of a hill, hoping to find either a crevasse leading downwards or — there! The telltale reddish glint of an iron deposit. So close to the surface, too! You can tell there's enough here for a blade and at least a few armor plates. Dream’s weapon had been a crude wooden thing edged with fragments of broken stone. This will be the advantage you need.

A couple of hours later you’re pulling yourself up into the cool twilight air. You feel good. You have food, you have armor, you have a shiny new iron sword, and most importantly of all, while waiting for the plates to cool you had discovered that your communicator’s tracker actually functions here. You almost never bother to use it because it only works in maybe one out of every ten worlds, but here the symbol is lit up a steady bright yellow instead of its usual dull amber, pointing to the only other communicator in this dimension — Dream’s.

You take a moment to stretch out your cramped muscles and accustom yourself to the weight of the iron plates, then set out at a steady jog in the direction of the tracker’s blinking light. Finally, you’re back on the trail of your prey. There’s — there’s _blood in the water._ You bare your teeth in a grin.

This time, Dream won’t see you coming.

* * *

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been running. The burn of exertion in your legs harmonizes with the eager hum of pursuit in your mind until you can hardly tell the two apart, and the hours blur together. You know you ran through a village at some point during the night. All the villagers had been asleep, but their golem had watched you pass with a suspicious eye. That was alright. You don’t like doing first contact with villages, anyway. They never seem quite as surprised to meet you as they should be.

You didn’t stop, but you could tell your quarry had come this way by the barren garden plots. Had he managed to find some emeralds somewhere, you wonder, or just taken advantage of villagers’ natural generosity when it comes to things left lying around? Maybe he had given up some of his supplies as payment.

You break through the edge of the forest into a broad, low meadow. The early dawn light is just hitting the grass, making the night dew shine gold, but it’s lost on you — all you’re interested in is the stream cutting through the center of the shallow valley. Seeing it makes you realize just how thirsty you are. You make your way over to crouch on the flat stones of the bank and lower your head to drink.

Looking up, you see a school of fat silver fish making its way upstream. You don’t even have to think about it. Your hand darts out to easily snag the first one that comes within reach. Making a fire would take too long, so you just sit there in the quiet of the morning and eat with your bare hands, hidden by the tall grass around you, knees pressed into the damp stone. When it’s gone you catch another, and then another after that. You can’t quite finish the last one. Your stomach is full, but the food isn’t quite completely satisfying — like it’s not the meal you _really_ wanted.

You leave the bones and entrails for some scavenger to find, and move on.

The sun is high in the sky before the symbol on your tracker finally shifts to the side. It takes you a moment to even understand what that means, you’re so caught up in the simple anticipatory pleasure of the chase, mind full of steady forward motion. But when you realize, you snap back to yourself so quickly you almost get whiplash.

_He’s close._

You can’t see him anywhere, though, even when you climb the tallest oak you can find to peer from its branches. He must be underground. Damn. You’ll either have to find the cave opening he used, or just keep following him by the tracker and hope he doesn’t find a way to give you the slip while he’s down there.

On the plus side, he shouldn’t have any idea you’re nearby. You’ll be tracking a target who thinks he’s at least temporarily safe. And you’re not sure if you have the equipment advantage anymore, since he has been underground possibly finding iron, but at least you won’t be at a _dis_ advantage. You’re full of energy and feeling good. You just need to win this _one_ fight. All in all, you think as you drop down the last few feet from the lowest branch, you like your chances.

Your feet hit the ground and your side ignites with pain as something pierces through a gap in your armor.

Your own sword is in your hand before you realize what’s happened. You whirl around and Dream is _there_ in front of you, _how is he there,_ he was _nowhere_ a minute ago! There’s no time to think. He got the drop on you but you just need to win this, you just need to take him down _once,_ and you bring your sword down like a hammer. It hits his bloodstained blade with a clang that sends every bird within a dozen yards flying into the air. You grit your teeth and bring it around again, obviously aiming for the side of his head, and then use the force of his block to push yourself around the side and kick the back of his knee out from under him.

He stumbles forward with a cry, but turns his fall into a roll and comes up facing you. For your part, that move had done something _bad_ to the wound in your side. By the time you recover he’s already coming at you again.

 _“George!”_ he shouts, swiping at you. “George, _stop!_ Leave me _alone!"_

“Shut up, Dream!” you snarl as you knock his sword aside. You aren’t interested in talking. You’re just here to kill him. And god, but that mask is annoying. You can’t tell what he’s thinking at _all._

You’re going to lose here. You can feel the loss coming as more blood pulses from your side with each heartbeat, and it _infuriates_ you. But maybe you can get at least some advantage out of this.

You abandon all restraint and lunge forward with your blade point-first. Dream’s sword comes for your neck and you block the edge with your bare hand. The tip still draws a sharp line across your cheek, but your own blade bites deep into his left arm, just below the shoulder. You ignore his cry of pain, flip your sword around, and close in to slam the hilt into his face as hard as you can from your slightly awkward angle. There’s a loud crack. You do it again.

But Dream has managed to get his sword up and between you, and he shoves you away just enough to lash out at your knee with a shattering kick. The pain overwhelms you for a moment as you fall, and when you look up you see Dream, his mask cracked in half, the remaining part still held on by the band across the top. He’s breathing hard. The point of his sword quivers inches over your neck. His teeth are bared in a grin of adrenaline, identical to the one on your own face. For a moment you lock eyes and everything is still.

Then you make a compulsive move towards your fallen sword — useless, unreachable, several feet away — and his blade descends, and the world goes bright and then dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank all of you so, so much for the comments and kudos! I honestly can't tell you how excited it made me to see people enjoying my writing, I was over the moon about it :D I hope you liked this chapter. the rest should be out soon - the reason this took so long is because I wanted to get the whole thing more or less finished before posting it. the next part is already mostly written and the two after it are about half done so there shouldn't be too much of a wait this time!
> 
> again, comments feed my soul. I would love to know what you liked (or even what you didn't like!) and hear any questions you have about the fic or the AU!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frenzy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that graphic violence warning is more applicable than ever folx
> 
> thanks once again to my amazing sibling and beta reader orestes-swimming who took time away from actual grad school to read my minecraft fanfiction!!!

Okay, so maybe getting decent equipment is overrated. Maybe you don’t need any of that. Maybe what you _really_ need is to find Dream as quickly as possible so you can _fucking kill him._

You don’t really remember getting from spawn to his location. You remember waking up, a little, because of how much your neck and side still hurt, but the rest of it is a blur. There’s a weird sort of haze over your vision. You’re _so_ angry — except it’s not anger exactly, not quite. You just need this. You need to find him. You _need_ to take him down. And you _know_ he knows how it’s supposed to go, you’ve been able to see it in his every move since the two of you arrived in this world. He knows that as long as you’re here, he’s a dead man walking. He knows that your purpose is to kill him, and his is to flee, and hide, and die. But he refuses! He keeps turning to fight you instead! It makes your blood boil.

You see him across a lake. It’s midday — the same day? You have no idea. Your legs are burning but your whole _body_ is burning, humming with the knowledge of how close he is. You don’t see his iron armor. You just see the fluttering pulse in his throat.

He turns just as you emerge from the water, maybe fifteen meters away. He's bandaged his shoulder but he hasn’t repaired his mask. The half that’s still attached to the band is pushed to the side of his head, out of the way. His expression is gloriously clear as he catches sight of you, dripping wet, teeth bared, torn-off branch clutched in your hand, rising off your knees in the mud to sprint towards him.

The terror in his eyes pulls you forward like a magnet. He stumbles backwards and breaks into a run. Finally, _finally,_ things are as they should be, he is running and you are chasing and you are hot on his trail and closing fast, legs eating up the distance between you, kicking up sprays of dirt as your vision narrows to the back of his neck. Ten feet. Eight feet. Four feet, and your fingertips reach out to brush his jacket.

Immediately he whirls around and you barely miss impaling yourself through the chest as you bull into him with all your weight. When did he draw his sword? It doesn’t matter. He’s underneath you and pinned down. This is it. This is what you needed. You raise your branch high over your head and bring it down towards his face with a wild howl.

You don’t even feel the blow that kills you.

* * *

You do it again.

Everything is a blur. You almost feel like you’re floating outside of yourself, but at the same time every flex of your muscles, every breeze across your skin sends shivers through your whole body. You smell earth, stone, the distant organic scent of livestock from the village, but none of those are the scent that calls to you. The smell of your prey is faint, part harsh and artificial, part sweat and fear, tinged _(yes)_ with blood. Your hands leave bloody smears of their own as you claw your way through the undergrowth.

This is what you were made for. This is what you were meant to be. You feel more yourself than you ever have, the pure physicality of your every motion drawing your mind and your body into perfect harmony. You are your eyes wide in the dim light of the forest, your ears sharp for the sound of your prey, your hands curled to claws in the anticipation of flesh. Your self has deserted you. Your self is feet pounding on earth and blood in the air.

You find him as he’s skirting the edge of a barren cliff. The sound of his heavy, slightly uneven breaths carries across the distance between you with perfect clarity. The smell of blood is strong. You don’t think of sneaking up and pushing him off — you aren’t really thinking at all. Instead you surge towards him from the treeline with an elated howl.

He jerks around to stare at you. For less than a second he’s frozen with terror, and then he takes off at a dead sprint. But you’re faster. Of course you’re faster. The chase is what you _are._ You overtake him in moments, throwing yourself forward and catching him around the legs.

He hits the ground hard and twists around to face you with a strangled scream. He’s thrashing in panic, kicking desperately at your face, catching you on the cheek, the jaw. You don’t feel it. You claw your way up towards his face with frenzied violence, pinning one of his legs as he scrabbles frantically in the dirt. You can see the pulse in his throat. You can feel his heartbeat. Your nails catch on cloth, then skin, and his throat is finally within reach, his face, his eyes —

His voice breaks on another wordless scream as he twists his head to the side, avoiding your scrabbling nails. He throws a hand up to grasp your left wrist. You dig your teeth into the meat of his forearm. He shrieks and his other hand comes up to fling sand directly into your eyes.

You yelp and rear back instinctively, just for a moment, but somehow for him that’s enough. He balls his hand into a fist and hits you square in the throat. You choke — you can’t breathe — you lash out frantically in the direction of his face, but he gets both his legs up between you and in one desperate heave sends you over the edge of the cliff.

For a long, breathless moment, there’s nothing but the air rushing past you. Then you bounce off the cliff face once, twice, and hit the ground with an impact that whites out your mind. The pain is almost too much to comprehend but somehow the clearest sensation of all is the shreds of skin still caught under your nails.

You are broken. You’ve failed again.

As you’re dying you see his face, distant at the top of the ravine. You can’t make out his expression through the blur of tears. The late afternoon sun has turned his hair to shining gold. You try weakly to lift an arm towards him but even the smallest movement sends agony shooting through you.

He looks down at you for a long minute, then his head retreats back over the side of the cliff. Your eyes slip closed. You’re gone before the evening shadows reach the place where he stood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this 10 minutes before I have to go to work!! Pog!!!!
> 
> I'm trying to keep this pretty close to the events of the actual manhunt (though obviously I stray a bit, there was no cliff in the original but I took artistic license for ~drama~) and after the fight from the last chapter, there was a bit where George got frustrated and kept coming back to attack Dream with nothing but a wooden sword (and getting owned) because he didn't want to go get iron and stuff again. And I was immediately like, oh yeah, he is just going to fucking lose it here. So I hope you enjoyed George in full feral mode!
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter but the next couple should make up for it. They're already mostly written but I still have to finish editing and stuff, so post time will depend on how quick I manage to get my Actual Adult Responsibilities out of the way. To everyone who's commented, you are absolutely the wind beneath my wings, this chapter would have been much more delayed if not for all you amazing people motivating me! Y'all are the best!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Re-connection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continued thanks to my amazing beta orestes-swimming, without whom this would have taken twice as long and been half as good!!

You wake up calmer.

Well, no. You wake up spitting mad. But moving hurts almost as much as it did when you were lying at the bottom of that cliff, so you have no choice but to lie there until your limbs all remember that they’re in one piece again and the haze in your mind clears.

That had been… that had been stupid. You’re honestly a little embarrassed. What exactly did you think you were going to accomplish with that kind of behavior? _Idiot,_ George. Yes, it’s tempting to get carried away, but you need to focus! Really, you know better than this. You don’t even want to think about what Sapnap would say if he’d seen you back there. Or worse, what _Bad_ would say! _Ugh._

Once your limbs have mostly stopped aching, you pull yourself to your feet with a groan. You need to re-equip yourself _(properly_ this time) but the thought of going digging… well, maybe you can at least put it off until you’re a little closer. After all, you have a long way to travel. _Again._

Night is closing in. You sigh and set off in the direction your tracker points you.

You intend to walk at least part of the way, conserve a little energy this time, but you find yourself falling back into that steady loping stride that comes so easily. This time you don’t let yourself zone out completely, though. There’s been enough of that. You have to keep your wits about you and look for supplies.

Around midnight, you’re surprised to discover that he isn’t far from where you last left him. Unfortunately, though, he’s gone underground again for some reason. Is he trying to hide? He knows it won’t do him any good in the long run. Still, this will be a good opportunity to gear up again. You pick a likely-looking cave mouth and head down.

* * *

You’re picking your way cautiously around a narrow lava flow about an hour later when your communicator chimes, making you jump. You fumble to unclip it from your belt and stare uncomprehendingly at the message on its pop-up display.

_Dream has entered the Nether._

There’s more after that, a condensed summary of the automatic dimensional scan taken by the first device to enter this world’s Nether, but you don’t care about that right now. What? Why has he gone to the _Nether,_ of all places? What could he possibly be trying to do in there?

Then you feel like an idiot for the second time tonight as you realize: the key to finding out is literally in your hand.

How could you have forgotten that you can use your communicator for, you know, _communication?_ You could just call him and ask! Admittedly, you’re not sure how much he’ll want to talk, but he might at least let something slip. It can’t hurt to try.

The outgoing call flashes for longer than usual before finally going through. You don’t wait for him to speak first.

“Dream, what the _hell?”_

There’s a pause. “...George?” His tone is cautious. Well, good. It should be.

“What are you doing, Dream!”

“George, what — you called me. You called me! Did — wait, does this mean — are you back to normal? Did it actually work? I thought maybe if I went in a different dimension — though _I’m_ still — but how do you feel, George? Are you okay?”

Back to normal? What? “Dream, _I_ feel fine. I want to know-”

But he’s already interrupting you, words spilling out like he can’t stop them. “George, this is so weird. I can’t calm down — I mean I kind of can, but when _you’re_ nearby it’s like there’s this, I don’t know, this _force_ or something and I just have to run! It’s like… it’s like… I can’t even describe it. Even talking to you right now is…” He draws a shaky breath. “It must be this world, but I’ve never even _heard_ of an anomaly like this. It’s like it’s influencing our minds or something. George,” he swallows, “I’m kind of freaking out.”

Honestly what is he even talking about. You know he likes to ramble when he gets excited, but how is any of this important? “Dream, who _cares_ about any of that? I want to know how you’re in the Nether already! How am I supposed to find you in there?”

“ _What do you mean who —_ fuck. Fuck. Goddammit.” His voice went all shrill there for a second. Wow, he sounds like he’s barely holding it together. “Okay, listen, George. I know you’re feeling weird right now, but we’re being _mind controlled,_ okay? Or, or possessed, or something. You’ve been trying to _kill me,_ you know that’s weird, right?” He’s talking all slow, like he thinks you can’t understand him or something. “Last time you found me you tried to _gouge my eyes out with a stick._ Not even a _sharp_ stick!” Huh, you don’t remember the stick. “You were acting _insane!_ I don’t even think you could _talk!_ Fuck, I don’t know if _I_ could talk, I was so — George, there is something _seriously wrong_ here!”

You roll your eyes. Oh, like the two of you haven’t always been competitive. You’ve killed each other plenty of times before! “Dream, I don’t know why you’re so hung up on, I don’t know, whatever it is you think is so important, but you _can’t_ distract me, okay? I _am_ going to find you.” You huff a little annoyed breath. “You’re acting so weird. What are you doing in there? Are you making potions? Or, oh -” — a thought occurs to you — “-are you making _Ender Eyes?”_

“I’m — I’m not telling.” He sounds more nervous than he did a second ago, though he’s trying to hide it. Good. Maybe he’ll slip up, try to swim in some lava. You kind of hope not, though — that would technically get the job done, but it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as taking him down yourself.

“You are, aren’t you! You want to get to the End and escape! But you _know_ you can’t escape me, Dream.” You can’t help but laugh a little. It’s so good to talk to him! “I’m going to hunt you down. Like the killer that I am!”

A long silence. You can hear him breathing. You shift impatiently, wishing you could tell what he’s thinking. Wishing you could see his face.

And then: “...I bet I can, though.” And there’s a hint of challenge in his voice, under the fear. It’s the same tone he gets when you point out a tiny pool of water at the bottom of a ravine. When Sapnap challenges him to a race with stupidly unfair stakes.

Oh, yes. _Yes!_ This is more _like_ it. “Dream, there is absolutely _no_ way you make it to the End before I find you.” Your tone is final. Come on, come on, take the challenge, make it _fun…_

“Oh come on, I’ve already killed you like _five times,”_ he retorts immediately. “You’ve been acting like even more of an idiot than usual, it’s _easy!_ You come at me with, what, a branch? And no armor at all? And you think you’re going to- to win like that? And — remember that one time I found a Stronghold in a _day?_ There’s no way you catch me. No _way._ And even if you did I would have _nothing_ to worry about, because I would just kill you again! You don’t scare me at all.”

By the end of his boast the confidence in his voice is strong enough that if you didn’t know better, you would almost believe him. But you’re not fooled. You can still feel the fear underneath — heavy, sticky, magnetic.

This has gone on long enough.

You take a moment to glance at the tracker, then shoulder your bag and start picking your way further down the cave. “That’s a lot of big talk, Dream. But I think you know how this is going to go. I’m _going_ to kill you.

“I’m going to hunt you down and tear out your throat. Remember how I almost did that last time? Remember how close I got? You can kill me as many times as you want, Dream, but you can never stop and you can never rest, because I’ll just _keep coming back,_ Dream, every time. I’ll chase you all the way to the Far Lands if I have to. And one of those times you’ll get unlucky. Or you’ll get tired. Or you’ll get slow — how’s that shoulder feeling? One way or another, you’ll slip up. And then…” You let your voice trail off. You’re grinning from ear to ear. “I'm going to _catch_ you. You’re going to _die,_ Dream.”

There’s a long silence. You can hear him breathing, can picture the look on his face — oh, he must be properly terrified again. You laugh, just a little, just to let him know how much you’re enjoying this.

“...we’ll see,” he says, shaky, and the connection cuts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult - I wrote the first version of that conversation almost a month ago, and it's definitely the part of this fic I've rewritten the most. That said I'm pretty happy with how it came out? Dialogue isn't generally my strong suit but I had fun with it, especially Dream's bits :D
> 
> A note: I have made one small but important edit to the first chapter! There's a worldbuilding detail that I didn't include because I thought this fic was going to be a oneshot when I first posted it, but is actually kind of important to know now. It's just a couple words in the first paragraph so you may want to go back and have a glance at that at some point before the end of the fic!
> 
> I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point thanking the commenters, but holy shit, THANK YOU, COMMENTERS. The amount of support and interest in this fic has been unbelievable!! I thought I was gonna be writing for myself and maybe 3 other people but we're almost at 100 kudos now?? I have to pinch myself every time I look at the hit count :D And I favorite all the comment emails so I can go back and read them to cheer myself up at work <3 You guys. Are the best. I hope you liked the chapter!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frustration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to my amazing beta and sibling @orestes-swimming for helping me beat this into shape! you're the best, K <3

You get lucky. Twice, actually.

First, you stumble into a collapsed mineshaft. It doesn’t look like one of the _really_ old ones — you’re not deep enough for that anyway — but even abandoned village mines always have a few useful bits still left lying around. And sure enough, after an hour or so of climbing over rockfalls and squeezing under splintered support beams you unearth a scatter of shining diamonds tucked away at the bottom of a dusty, half-buried chest. You pick them out carefully and sift through your handful with a hiss of excitement. They wouldn’t be worth much in any real marketplace, but there’s just enough here for what you need.

You take your time with the crafting, despite the nagging urge to rush onward. Diamond can only be crafted once. If you mess it up you’ll be left with nothing but useless brittle shards. There’s not quite enough for a full diamond blade so instead you smooth the pieces into a coating over your iron sword, running your hands across the flat of it over and over, concentrating hard as you trace the long-memorized Galactic symbols and flex your magic just the tiniest bit required to make the crystal malleable. When it’s layered to your satisfaction, you turn to the edge, furrowing your brow as you call it to a wicked razor sharpness.

Finally you rise from your makeshift crafting table, crack your neck, and give the improved blade a few experimental swings. There’s a satisfying _swish_ as it cuts through the air. You smile. It’s not the prettiest weapon you’ve ever made, but it’ll cut bone as easily as flesh.

* * *

You don’t regret stopping to craft, but the delay wears on your nerves, and your agitation only increases as you’re forced to circle and backtrack through the maze of caverns and tunnels. Every minute you waste dealing with decrepit Endermen and cave spiders is a minute Dream’s lead grows. Eventually you get fed up and just start digging down. You aren’t the best at magic, but anyone can do this. All it takes is concentration and energy. You were hesitant to spend that energy before but you managed to collect a fair bit of food on your way here — mostly fish and berries — and you _really_ want to catch Dream before he makes it out of the Nether. Besides, the compressed dirt and stone you’re tucking away in your material bag might come in handy later.

As it turns out, it comes in handy sooner.

You get no warning when the bottom of your little borehole gives way. One moment you’re standing on solid granite, digging through your bag for your last handful of berries, and then there’s a heart-stopping _crack_ and the floor opens up and you’re plummeting towards a lake of lava.

There’s no time for you to react. It’s far too close. There’s nothing to catch yourself on, nothing to push off of, just a few seconds that feel like centuries as you watch your horrible death rising to meet you, _again._ Just enough time for the helpless shriek of rage to rise in your throat as you realize just how far behind this will put you, just how much you’re going to lose, because now Dream has managed to kill you without even being in the same _dimension —_

And that’s when you get lucky again, because your hand brushes against a compressed pebble as it tumbles from your open material bag.

The moment you feel it, you instinctively pull on your magic with all your strength. The pebble _woomphs_ back to full size and splashes into the lake a fraction of a second before you would have. You hit cobblestone instead of lava, but it’s too deep, the stone is rolling and sinking beneath you. No time to think, no time to reach for your material bag, but the shore is _right there_ and you lunge —

For one heart-stopping moment you teeter on the shallow lip of stone, arms windmilling, but you manage to throw your weight forward just in time to collapse on the shore.

Well, the fatigue from all that digging has evaporated, that’s for sure. Your heart is stampeding in your chest. If you’d fallen in… hell, if you’d even dipped a foot in, the burns would have been bad enough that respawn might have been the best option. You could have lost your food, your supplies, your _sword…_ but when you look up, all the what-ifs are driven from your mind.

A dully glowing portal squats above the lake just at the other end of the small cavern. Scattered pieces of wooden kindling still smolder around its base. Beyond you can just make out a row of furnaces. The flames are banked but as you approach you can tell at least a few of them are still full of whatever it is your friend was cooking - which, when you get over there, turns out to be enough iron to make armor plates with a bit left over for tools. There’s also meat in the last one, some sort of bird, you can’t tell. Now this — _this_ is a windfall. Dream even left his crafting bench set up against the wall. You hurriedly gather the goods and set to work.

After warring with yourself for a moment you give in to temptation and send Dream a selfie of you wearing the armor plates with the portal in the background. You know he’s still in there, he never would have left all that stuff behind on his way out of the cave. This will freak him out for sure.

Your sword is light in your hand as you step into the mesmerizing purple swirls of the portal. Your gut churns with excitement.

But on the other side you only find frustration. You locate the fortress easily enough — the portal brings you out practically on its doorstep. And Dream has left a scattering of wood and cobble stepping stones along his trail. He must have gotten fed up and started using magic too. But although you trace and retrace his path through the fortress, there’s no sign of the man himself. Has he already been and gone? Is he hiding, waiting for you to give up and leave so he can make a break for it? Waiting to ambush you? Your tracker keeps flickering in different directions but you don’t know if that’s because he’s left the Nether or if the stupid thing is on the fritz.

Eventually you give up. You stake out the portal for a short time in case he was just in there waiting for you to leave, but it becomes pretty apparent that he’s gone when your tracker starts pointing in a single direction again. Your frustration at his _somehow_ having managed to give you the slip in such a small area only gets worse as the day wears on and you just. Can’t. Find him. He doesn’t have _that_ much of a head start, he should be nearby and the tracker agrees as it flips back and forth, but he’s nowhere to be found.

A few hours after nightfall there’s a moment when you think you almost have him. You’re digging down again, frustrated enough to risk exhausting yourself on the off-chance he might be in a hidden cave below the surface here. You’re not that far down when you hear a quiet thud above you. When you whip your head up to look, though, there’s nothing - just the empty mouth of a tiny subterranean hollow you’d dug past and dismissed as too small to hold anything useful, and past it the distant stars.

You narrow your eyes, every muscle still as you listen. Is that the shuffling of cloth? The clank of a muffled blade, or just a skeleton rattling in the dark?

There’s a long, tense moment. You take the risk of stacking some stone underneath you to get back up to the cave — and was that the sound of someone else doing the same, layered beneath? You pause, ears straining.

You’re almost ready to assume it was a mob and start digging again when you hear it — almost inaudible but distinct, the unmistakable metallic crunch of someone biting into a golden apple. In an instant you’re towering back up to the cave. It’s him, it _has_ to be. But when you reach the opening there’s no one there. You follow the steady glowing indicator of your tracker into the darkness and straight through the back wall of the tiny cave, digging as fast as you can, heedless of your fatigue just as long as you can get closer to him, _closer,_ catch a leg or a foot as he flees into the solid earth, finally get your hands around his neck…

But after a few minutes it’s clear that he’s somehow given you the slip, if it even was him at all. There are no more suspicious noises and the tracker points steadily away. You spend a little while longer down in the dark just to be certain but no, he’s gone. _Again._

A wave of exhaustion sweeps over you as you’re making your way back to the surface. Partly it’s the exertion from all this digging. Partly it’s the time since you last slept — respawn leaves you with a thin sort of energy, but it can’t take the place of a solid 6 hours, and you’ve been awake for days. But mostly it’s the way this chase is dragging.

It’s been _so_ long since you caught sight of your prey. You’re starting to regret encouraging him with your challenge earlier. You thought it would make things more fun, but now that he’s thinking of this as a competition instead of a chase he seems to have gotten a fresh burst of energy. You’ve been hot on his heels, you _know_ you have, but it feels like he’s ten steps ahead of you. Metaphorical steps, not literal steps. Gods and Watchers, you wish he was only ten steps away.

Was that even him you were chasing underground? Was there anyone there at all? Were you chasing your own tail like a dog, so desperate for the hunt that you started inventing traces for yourself to follow? Maybe you’ve been wrong this whole time. Maybe he never even went to the Nether — maybe he had slipped in and out of the portal and started running and you had fallen for it like the idiot he calls you sometimes in that fond voice of his. Maybe this has all been one big game for him and he was never really afraid of you, he’s been leading you on from the start, playing you like a kitten with a string.

You grit your teeth as you heft your pick to keep digging. He’s far away, you just know it, far away and laughing at your stupid threats and your utter failure to make good on them. He’s probably gone back to the Nether already, found a different fortress. He’s probably found a stronghold. Any moment now your communicator will chime and you’ll see that he’s entered the End, and he’ll be escaped, out of your reach, gone, gone, gone...

Your pick breaks through into open air. You jump and haul yourself up to the surface. It’s still night, though a hint of pink glows on the horizon. You flop onto your back, feeling more tired than you have since you spawned in to this world.

When you open your eyes, they drift slowly down from the sky and come to rest at the base of a tree, where a golden apple core lies half-hidden in the grass.

In an instant, you’re on your feet and crouching over it. The lethargy and despair of moments ago are gone. Your veins are filled with electricity again. You reach out a trembling hand — it’s still damp. The juice hasn’t dried. This was left here less than an hour ago. And is that…? Yes! There half-buried in the dirt, like he’d wanted to cover his tracks but couldn’t make himself take the time to do it properly, is a wad of cloth covered in rusty stains. When you pull it from the earth it smells of blood both dried and fresh as well as char and a hint of brimstone. A large patch is singed to ash. Did a blaze really manage to hit the same arm you stabbed? And if he’d bandaged it instead of using a golden apple, that must mean he’d only had the one, and he’d been hurt badly enough when he fell into your hole that he was forced to use it against his wishes… oh, Dream. Dream, Dream, Dream. It’s not looking good for you now, is it.

You rise to your feet with a feral grin. All your doubt is gone. You thought he was out of reach, but it seems instead that he’s never been closer.

He’s hit the end of his rope. You can feel it. The next time you meet will end in blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK
> 
> I am _so_ sorry this chapter took so long. I was kind of distracted in early November because of... everything. And then just as I was getting back into the swing of things events kicked off on the Dream SMP and I got _thoroughly_ sidetracked. And even apart from the distractions this chapter gave me way more trouble than it had a right to, a few specific parts of it were like pulling teeth :P
> 
> But here it is now!! There a lot of little worldbuilding tidbits stuck in there too, so I hope you enjoy that :D The next chapter is gonna be a real fun one. Unless the world explodes again, it should be up a lot quicker than this was.
> 
> Thank you once again to everyone who's commented so far!! You people are amazing and I love seeing your reactions to what I wrote <3 <3 <3


End file.
